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If Seattle is not careful they’re going to end up on the same situation as the Bay Area: extremely expensive building projects due to red tape that take forever

If Seattle is not careful they’re going to end up on the same situation as the Bay Area: extremely expensive building projects due to red tape that take forever to complete and only house the rich. Yeah you can build here, but have you completed all your environment impact studies? And posted notice of tree removal with requisite public comment period? And have you set aside 30% of the units for low income and raised the price on the rest of the the units to make up for it? And are you ready to comply with rent control laws? And are you supplying 2 parking spaces per tenant as required by law? And is your business chartered in CA with requisite taxes and fees? Did your bidding process include businesses owned by historically underrepresented groups? Have you kissed the ring of your local union leaders? Did you make sure your exterior design complies with neighborhood matching decor laws? Oh my god you're not going to cut down that 50-year-old redwood are you?? Wait why aren’t we building more apartments again?

dmix 7y ago
Pretty much every city in North America is like this to varying degrees. I've always wondered how Toronto manages to build a hundred giant buildings while most cities only have a few going at a time, with a few exceptions (note NYC has 3x the population of Toronto): https://www.remonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Diagram_High-Rise-Construction1.jpg https://www.remonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Diagram... I'd imagine if there wasn't this sort of arrangement basically every growing city would be developing 10x more buildings than they currently are (at least).
- cbowal 7y ago
  If that chart is accurate it seems that Canadian cities across the board are building more high-rises. I wonder why.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    Reduced heating costs perhaps? Heating from -40 to room temp is much, much more expensive than, say, air conditioning in the southern US. If you are not averse to sharing some walls, it makes sense. Personally, I don't think I could go back to apartment living, but I will also readily admit that I am not a good candidate for "normal" in most regards.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    For whatever reason, Canadians seem to be more open to multifamily high-rise living. As a child in the 1970s it always seemed off to me when we'd visit relatives in smallish towns in Canada which had midrise buildings while in the southern US where we lived much larger cities had few recent buildings of similar heights. This is simply my recollection of things but it seemed like even a small town of 20,000 in Ontario had good odds of having a residential building at least ten stories tall. Perhaps it was a difference in government policy in how it built social housing?
jld 7y ago
While Seattle still has a ton of work to do, is much more progressive on these issues than they Bay Area, and it’s getting better, not worse.
- trianglem 7y ago
  I would not call getting rid of these regulations as progressive. They exist to protect the environment and enrich the lives of the residents. We just need better, cheaper solutions to construction even if it's something as far fetched as robot labor.
  - nardi 7y ago
    > enrich the lives of the residents Mostly, it’s retaining residents’ property values. By not building any new housing.
    - closetohome 7y ago
      That's literally Elizabeth Campbell's entire motivation. She doesn't want to have to look at the poors in her neighborhood.
  - rjkennedy98 7y ago
    It sounds good in theory that "They exist to protect the environment and enrich the lives of the residents". Then I'm reminded that environment protection laws have been used to build larger freeways (because we don't want to have cars idling too long!)
- starpilot 7y ago
  WA still has a libertarian bent that despises red tape. We have no state income tax due to that.
  - dev_dull 7y ago
    As a former resident, I hope you can see the tides are shifting rapidly. How long can you keep things that way? Didn’t Seattle elect a socialist? Their policies are the opposite of libertarian.
phillipcarter 7y ago
> Yeah you can build here, but have you completed all your environment impact studies? And posted notice of tree removal with requisite public comment period? This stuff really matters in the entire region because nearly everything is a landslide hazard.
loeg 7y ago
This comment is completely non-responsive to the article. The article describes a move in the opposite direction from increased regulation and red tape. Meanwhile, Seattle has already been vastly better than SF at building new housing units over the last decade. SEPAs have existed during that entire period and are used by NIMBY groups to attempt to slow down growth, but ultimately they have not succeeded at stifling development the way SF's NIMBYs have.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  The heart of their effort is lowering the amount of time for certain appeals. It's not about addressing the real concern (the onerous regulation and red tape that allows everybody to slow down building unless it satisfies their particular social justice issue, whether that's environmental, aesthetic, cost, etc). Cities and state governments want this regulation. They crave it and create it endlessly because it forces developers to come to them for permission.
  - Brozilean 7y ago
    Or it's because those with money to build property are inherently exploitative of those living there.
    - quotemstr 7y ago
      If using money to buy property is "exploitative", you've redefined that word into meaninglessness.
    - dev_dull 7y ago
      It’s better that chunk of land stays an empty lot and we all pay more and more for rent. Otherwise we’d be getting exploited!
    - dgoldstein0 7y ago
      And the best way to fuel that exploitation is to give the existing set of landowners an effective monopoly by disallowing new construction. If we instead encouraged new construction (via less red tape and other means) we should expect rents to go down as the supply expands - or at least for them to rise less.
BookmarkSaver 7y ago
>Wait why aren’t we building more apartments again? Have you seen the Seattle skyline in the last 4 years? Lol. I feel like this is a canned rant of yours that doesn't necessarily have a basis in this actual situation.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  While you raise a fair point, the fact that Seattle is building a lot doesn't mean that Seattle is building enough. IIRC the net inflow is ~50 people/day. Seattle would need something like a new apartment building every week to break even.
markdown 7y ago
That doesn't sound bad at all. Someone with the millions of dollars it takes to build apartment blocks isn't going to be held up with those minor issues. All those things sound completely reasonable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dmix 7y ago

Pretty much every city in North America is like this to varying degrees. I've always wondered how Toronto manages to build a hundred giant buildings while most cities only have a few going at a time, with a few exceptions (note NYC has 3x the population of Toronto): https://www.remonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Diagram_High-Rise-Construction1.jpg https://www.remonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Diagram... I'd imagine if there wasn't this sort of arrangement basically every growing city would be developing 10x more buildings than they currently are (at least).

cbowal 7y ago
If that chart is accurate it seems that Canadian cities across the board are building more high-rises. I wonder why.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  Reduced heating costs perhaps? Heating from -40 to room temp is much, much more expensive than, say, air conditioning in the southern US. If you are not averse to sharing some walls, it makes sense. Personally, I don't think I could go back to apartment living, but I will also readily admit that I am not a good candidate for "normal" in most regards.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  For whatever reason, Canadians seem to be more open to multifamily high-rise living. As a child in the 1970s it always seemed off to me when we'd visit relatives in smallish towns in Canada which had midrise buildings while in the southern US where we lived much larger cities had few recent buildings of similar heights. This is simply my recollection of things but it seemed like even a small town of 20,000 in Ontario had good odds of having a residential building at least ten stories tall. Perhaps it was a difference in government policy in how it built social housing?

jld 7y ago

While Seattle still has a ton of work to do, is much more progressive on these issues than they Bay Area, and it’s getting better, not worse.

trianglem 7y ago
I would not call getting rid of these regulations as progressive. They exist to protect the environment and enrich the lives of the residents. We just need better, cheaper solutions to construction even if it's something as far fetched as robot labor.
- nardi 7y ago
  > enrich the lives of the residents Mostly, it’s retaining residents’ property values. By not building any new housing.
  - closetohome 7y ago
    That's literally Elizabeth Campbell's entire motivation. She doesn't want to have to look at the poors in her neighborhood.
- rjkennedy98 7y ago
  It sounds good in theory that "They exist to protect the environment and enrich the lives of the residents". Then I'm reminded that environment protection laws have been used to build larger freeways (because we don't want to have cars idling too long!)
starpilot 7y ago
WA still has a libertarian bent that despises red tape. We have no state income tax due to that.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  As a former resident, I hope you can see the tides are shifting rapidly. How long can you keep things that way? Didn’t Seattle elect a socialist? Their policies are the opposite of libertarian.

phillipcarter 7y ago

> Yeah you can build here, but have you completed all your environment impact studies? And posted notice of tree removal with requisite public comment period? This stuff really matters in the entire region because nearly everything is a landslide hazard.

loeg 7y ago

This comment is completely non-responsive to the article. The article describes a move in the opposite direction from increased regulation and red tape. Meanwhile, Seattle has already been vastly better than SF at building new housing units over the last decade. SEPAs have existed during that entire period and are used by NIMBY groups to attempt to slow down growth, but ultimately they have not succeeded at stifling development the way SF's NIMBYs have.

dev_dull 7y ago
The heart of their effort is lowering the amount of time for certain appeals. It's not about addressing the real concern (the onerous regulation and red tape that allows everybody to slow down building unless it satisfies their particular social justice issue, whether that's environmental, aesthetic, cost, etc). Cities and state governments want this regulation. They crave it and create it endlessly because it forces developers to come to them for permission.
- Brozilean 7y ago
  Or it's because those with money to build property are inherently exploitative of those living there.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    If using money to buy property is "exploitative", you've redefined that word into meaninglessness.
  - dev_dull 7y ago
    It’s better that chunk of land stays an empty lot and we all pay more and more for rent. Otherwise we’d be getting exploited!
  - dgoldstein0 7y ago
    And the best way to fuel that exploitation is to give the existing set of landowners an effective monopoly by disallowing new construction. If we instead encouraged new construction (via less red tape and other means) we should expect rents to go down as the supply expands - or at least for them to rise less.

BookmarkSaver 7y ago

>Wait why aren’t we building more apartments again? Have you seen the Seattle skyline in the last 4 years? Lol. I feel like this is a canned rant of yours that doesn't necessarily have a basis in this actual situation.

dodobirdlord 7y ago
While you raise a fair point, the fact that Seattle is building a lot doesn't mean that Seattle is building enough. IIRC the net inflow is ~50 people/day. Seattle would need something like a new apartment building every week to break even.

markdown 7y ago

That doesn't sound bad at all. Someone with the millions of dollars it takes to build apartment blocks isn't going to be held up with those minor issues. All those things sound completely reasonable.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]